Sub-Saharan region has seen an increase in its apparel exports to USA during Jan.-Apr. 2020 period both in volumes and values, according to OTEXA.
The region shipped 126.59 million SME of apparels to USA worth US $ 462 million and noted a surge of 10 per cent and 6.10 per cent in volumes and values, respectively.
The growth of Sub-Saharan region has come at a time when OECD, NAFTA and ASEAN all fell in their value-wise apparel exports to USA in the same period by 23.37 per cent, 29.21 per cent and 1.92 per cent, respectively.
Kenya remained the top exporter to USA from Sub-Sahara with US $ 153.36 million worth of exports, marking 11.82 per cent growth on Y-o-Y basis. Volume-wise, Kenya marked 6.20 per cent growth and shipped 40.13 million SME of apparels to USA in the mentioned period.
USA, however, fell in its import from second top African destination Lesotho by 2.68 per cent in values. The shipment from Lesotho to USA valued US $ 90 million in the first 4 months.
Interestingly, Lesotho saw a surge of 4.84 per cent in volume-wise exports to ship 21 million SME apparels as compared to 20 million SME apparels in the same period of the prior year.
Madagascar witnessed growth in both values and volumes by 9 per cent and 13.92 per cent, respectively. The country shipped 21.69 million SME apparels to USA in Jan.-Apr. ’20 period which were worth US $ 81.52 million.
Ethiopia yet again marked its sturdy presence in apparel exports to the US market. The country shipped 30.13 million SME (6.42 million SME more than previous year) worth of apparels in the review period, marking 27.07 per cent growth. Value-wise, Ethiopia upped its apparel exports by 33.45 per cent and shipped US $ 76.71 million worth of garments to USA.
The most impacted destination proved to be Mauritius which drastically fell both in volumes and values of its apparel exports to USA this year. The country shipped 4.68 million SME of apparels (down 30.88 per cent) to USA clocking at US $ 35.49 million which is a whopping 30 per cent fall from a year earlier.
